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Poor small business marketing is one of the major causes of early small business failure. Poor small business marketing not only fails to get new and loyal customers, it also wastes small business marketing resources. Three major reasons account for this waste.

1. Failing to conduct small business marketing research.

2. Not targeting the people most likely to become customers.

3. Not creating and following a small business marketing plan.

Small Business Marketing Mistake 1: Failing To Conduct Small Business Marketing Research.

Some small business owners think they can’t afford to research their target market, competition and product development. But if you desire to be successful, you can’t afford not to.

Failing to gather the information that this research provides, forces you to base marketing on inaccurate or incomplete data and increases the odds that you will waste your marketing efforts.

Furthermore, without research to guide small business marketing decisions, business owners are less likely to approach marketing strategically, are more likely to make individual disjointed marketing efforts, and are less likely to win new and loyal customers.

A little money spent on research upfront can assure that your marketing to the right people and in the right way to be most successful. In fact, your target market is so important that it is covered as the second of the three major ways that small business owners waste their marketing resources.

Small Business Marketing Mistake 2: Failing To Target Your Best Potential Customers.

Business owners who don’t do research often don’t know the best target market for their products and services. Because they don’t determine who is most likely to buy their products, they market to everybody, and often don’t sell much to anybody. This type of small business marketing wastes marketing resources.

Many small business owners believe that everybody will want to buy what they sell, but that is seldom the case. This mistake wastes resources marketing to people who will never buy. Not only that, but failing to target the people most likely to buy, may actually alienate those who would otherwise become loyal customers.

Thus, your investment in target market research will return you much more in sales, and save you from wasting your marketing money on tactics that don’t work well.

With target market research, you’ll also be able to:

focus on your best potential customers,

learn as much as possible about these potential customers, and

design small business marketing campaigns to reach potential customers at least seven times within a year.

Target market research will help you to better understand:

those who are your best potential customers,

the media to use to distribute your marketing messages,

their information needs and effective appeals to include in marketing messages,

their spending power and the best price-point for your product or service.

By knowing and basing marketing decisions on target market research, you’ll get more return on your marketing investments by eliminating much waste.

Small Business Marketing Mistake 3: Failing To Create And Follow A Small Business Marketing Plan.

The third mistake is a result of the first two mistakes. Until you have done research on your product, competition and target market, you can’t plan the best way to spend your small business marketing resources. When you haven’t planned how to best spend your marketing resources, you can be persuaded to spend ineffectively.

Some small business owners believe that the only reason to complete a business plan is because banks require them for business loans. They fail to recognize the value of a business plan to guide their business, much less a marketing plan to guide their marketing.

This results in failing to determine the marketing strategies and investments that produce the greatest positive return on investment (marketing ROI). Not planning what small business marketing strategies will best lead to marketing goals, leaves small business owners easily distracted by sales people.

Many sales people play on the small business owner’s lack of marketing planning in order to sell marketing and advertising that do not move the business closer to its goals. A well-developed small business marketing plan is the best defense against sales people who will waste the business owners marketing resources in order to meet their own sales goals.

Don’t waste your small business marketing resources just because a sales person has a “great” promotion on media advertisements. If the advertisements don’t reach your target market, the promotion is not great for your business.

The same is true for sales people who offer marketing products and services. If you don’t have a marketing or business plan, you will fail to recognize when these are inappropriate for your target market. When you buy products and services that don’t advance your business toward your marketing goals, you waste resources and sacrifice the opportunity to use those resources on tactics that would reach your goals.